


adventures between dusty bookshelves

by midnightsnapdragon



Series: Band of Misfits [2]
Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Gen, Library AU, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-17 11:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14831504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightsnapdragon/pseuds/midnightsnapdragon





	adventures between dusty bookshelves

**i.**

There was a collective gasp in the librarians’ office as Anita the Reference Librarian held the suggestions box upside-down and a couple dozen paper slips poured out.

“We have another one!” screeched Emilie, plunging her hand into the pile. 

From her desk in the corner, Cress, wearing a name tag pinning her as another reference librarian, craned her neck to try to see what was going on.

With a dramatic flourish, Emilie pulled something out of the mound of book suggestions and complaints, and clutched in her fingers was –

A periwinkle paper heart.

“IT’S MINE!”

There was a blur of blue hair across the room and before anyone could blink, Emilie was on the floor and Iko was in possession of the blue heart. She scanned the message scribbled across the paper, and a dreamy smile came across her lips. “How sweet!”

Anita put her hands on her hips. “What makes you think it was meant for you?”

Iko pressed the heart to her chest and closed her eyes. “Blue.”

“What?”

“It’s blue. _Obviously_ meant for me.” She tossed her head for emphasis and a mass of braids hit Anita across the face.

“What does it say?” trilled Peony, a sweet little thing. Iko angled the paper at her, and she actually swooned. “Oh, don’t you get it? Whoever wrote this wanted to get a message to me without anyone knowing. I bet I even know who it is.” She stretched out her fingers for the heart.

“Let me see,” Anita snapped, starting forward. “I doubt it’s for either of you –“

Iko backed away from them, hackles rising – and promptly tripped over Emilie, who had been trying to get up off the floor, and flattened her. The blue heart fluttered through the air, was snatched by Peony, who was tackled by Anita, who made a wild grab for the heart and missed, and all four of them ended up in a hissing, flailing mass of limbs on the floor.

Cress calmly hopped off the desk and plucked the blue paper heart off the floor. Ignoring Emilie’s indignant shriek, she turned it toward the light so that she could read the message scribbled in black pen.

_The reference librarian is super cute. Could you please write her name and number on a paper and leave it in my reserved copy of The Seven Stones?_

**ii.**

“Look,” said Scarlet, rubbing her forehead, “that doesn’t help. If you can’t tell me the name –“

“It has a blue cover!” protested the cargo ship boy, whose devil-may-care grin had been replaced with the frazzled look of someone studying for a very long, very important test … and lost their history textbook. “How many of those could there be, really?”

She was tempted to take the nearest blue book and smack it over his head. “If you’re too proud to ask your teacher what it’s called, that’s your problem.”

He gave her a pleading look. “You’re the only librarian who’s been willing to help me. If you don’t … I’m doomed.”

Scarlet twisted her mouth but didn’t say anything, just turned her back and started down the nearest bookshelf passage.

“Hey, wait! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to do something useful while you go ask a friend what your textbook is called.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And I’m only here for another half hour. After that, you’ll have to ask Jacin.”

Behind her, the cargo ship boy paled.

**iii.**

_Bardugo, Barley, Baron, Bartemius –_

There was a sound behind him like a creaking door. Kai glanced over his shoulder, peering into the shadowy gloom of the library.

No one there. 

Of course; who would be here at this hour? Only he was losing sleep over the fact that someone had gotten to the first edition copy of _The Glass Bean_ and checked it out before him.

Assured that no one was about to walk in on him rooting through the library lending records in the middle of the night, he turned back to the cabinet and adjusted the flashlight gripped in his teeth before shuffling on to the C’s.

 _Cabet, Calshie, Carlucino, Catrine, Causticia_ – aha! 

Kai took the flashlight from his mouth, and with the other hand, pulled out the lending card for _The Glass Bean_ by Alfred Cazzin. He scanned it feverishly.

There was a single name under the column for students’ IDs:

WINTER HAYLE-BLACKBURN

Kai hummed in satisfaction and carefully replaced the card. He had his book thief; now all that was left was to find this Winter and confront her about it – he had reserved the book first, after all –

He shut the cabinet, swung around with the flashlight beam cutting through the darkness, and damn near screamed when he found himself face-to-face with one very suspicious Jacin Clay.

“What,” he said, squinting at Kai with blatant disdain, “are you doing?”

Kai fell back against the cabinets and let out a shuddering breath. His heart had leapt into his throat – he’d been sure that he was alone in a very dark, very empty library. _Stars._

“I could ask you the same thing,” he managed, straightening with difficulty.

“I happen to be investigating the break-and-enter at the back door.” Jacin tilted his head, the very echo of an owl that had scented a mouse. “You wouldn’t know anything about that … would you?”

“Nothing at all,” said Kai, a bit of his confidence returning. “I’m here on the request of one of the reference librarians, to make sure that nothing is out of order. She – uh – texted me a couple of hours ago and was beside herself with worry, so I decided to help out.”

Jacin raised an eyebrow. _“Really.”_

Kai swallowed. The story wasn’t plausible in the least, but it was the best he could come up with after being scared out of his wits. “Yep. Well, I’ve actually just finished” – he patted the cabinet and winced when the hollow metal clanged loudly – “so, er, I’ll just be on my way.”

He edged his way around Jacin, hoping the other boy wouldn’t hear his thudding pulse, and did his best to walk to the door instead of running. But the threshold, he hesitated.

Oh, heck. It was irresistible. Kai turned back around. 

“It’s not technically a break-and-enter,” he told Jacin matter-of-factly, “if nothing was broken. I mean, you can’t really call what’s on that door a lock.”

 _Then_ he ran.

**iv.**

Letting out a slow breath, Jacin turned to face the filing cabinets.

All right, he thought. The original diaries of Cyprus Blackburn had to be in the Restricted Section, which was under lock and key. He’d brought bobby pins and all sorts of wires, but there was always a chance that it would be more than a simple bolt – in which case he would be forced to use some more … incriminating entry tactics.

Actually, he’d be lucky if they hadn’t put an electronic lock on that door. Jacin didn’t know how to get past those yet.

Maybe he would ask that small student librarian to teach him.

He wasn’t a rule-breaker, or even a rule-bender, by nature; his record had to be spotless right along with his resume if he was to get the doctor’s internship he wanted. Thankfully he’d gotten rid of that other boy, who was evidently another lock-picker – nothing like faking authority to make someone clear out. He needed to get those documents without anyone poking in their nose.

Cyprus Blackburn had gone down in history as a perfectly harmless researcher of the effects of ionizing radiation on the human mind – but Jacin knew better. After his report, Blackburn’s medicines would forever be under suspicion.

As they should be.

After searching for a few minutes, Jacin found a map of the grand library in the head librarian’s desk– a true map, not the abridged version they gave the students – and scanned it. There: the Restricted Section was just out that door and down that hallway …

Checking once more time that he was alone, Jacin crept out of the rows and rows of bookshelves, leaving the office as spotless as if nothing at all had happened there.

**v.**

_There it is._

Cress faced off with the bookshelf like a boxer ready to fight; feet planted firmly apart, hands curled into fists. For several minutes she just stood there and glared up at the very top shelf, where the bright yellow volume winked down at her.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said through her teeth. Then she remembered that she was in a public place, and looked round; but all the student hubbub was near the study area. She was quite free to curse and rage at that book to her heart’s desire.

Steeling herself, Cress backed up a few steps – briefly considered the sheer ridiculousness of what she was going to try – then launched herself at the top shelf, hands clawing up for the yellow book. Her fingers didn’t even graze the spine. She thumped back down to the ground, hissing in frustration.

“Do you want me to get that for you?”

She turned, fire already blooming in her cheeks. Behind her was a hulk of a man, twice her height, whom she’d seen around a few times with Scarlet. He nearly took up the entire width of the library shelf corridor, but he hunched his shoulders and kept his hands in his pockets as if he was all too aware of his size.

Stammering, Cress unconsciously backed away. “I-I-I was just – uh – trying to …” Her hands went up in self-defence, though maybe more to hide from her own embarrassment than from him. “… get a book. Obviously. Um …”

He started forward, not meeting her eyes. Cress pressed herself up against the shelves, watching as the student, without even stretching, reached up and plucked the yellow book from its place.

He held it out to her wordlessly.

Cress took it, feeling confused for no reason. “Thanks, uh …?”

“Ze’ev,” he muttered, his gaze flicking from the floor to her eyes and back to the floor again. Fidgeting. Uncertain of how he’d be received. “But most people just call me Wolf.”

A tentative smile curled her lips. It wasn’t every day that she met someone who was even shyer than herself. “Okay. I’m Cress.”

Wolf met her eyes and seemed to relax a little. “If you ever need … assistance, I’m usually in the study area after school hours.” Then he gestured at a door set into the library wall a few metres away. “But just so you know, I think there’s a stool in that broom cupboard.”

**vi.**

_There are actually quite a few reference librarians. Which one do you mean?_

*

A week later, Cress had opened the twice-returned copy of The Seven Stones (with the entire cabinet of student librarians hovering over her shoulder) and pulled out the mysterious sender’s reply.

*

_The short blonde one with freckles who likes to sing – she does work here, right?_

*

Anita gasped. Iko squealed and hugged the short blonde in question, nearly squashing her, as happy as if the note had been addressed to her. The rivalry was forgotten. 

But Cress had frozen to her chair, wide eyes glued to the note. She had a secret admirer. She had a secret admirer. She had a – 

**vii.**

“Excuse me?”

The sleeping girl didn’t move. Her arms lovingly encircled a huge, dusty volume – something about Bohemian mythology. She was surrounded by stacks and stacks of huge and dusty volumes. It was a wonder the desk hadn’t collapsed under their weight.

“We’re closed.” Scarlet nudged the girl’s chair with her foot. _“Wake up,_ or you’ll be in here overnight.”

Not a sound. The girl’s soft breath rippled the curtain of black curls that screened her face, tumbled over her shoulders, draped the entire desk. She was dead to the world.

Scarlet sighed and checked her watch. _The jobs I get stuck with in this library._ She should have been home by now, but Emilie had asked her to do the last rounds and here was this history student in the middle of a hundred tomes that she hadn’t even known existed on their shelves … and it was past their closing hours.

When she looked up from her watch, a pair of startling amber eyes blinked up at her.

“Hello,” said a wandering, melodic voice that would have been less out of place in an enchanted forest. The girl lifted her head with a sleepy exhalation and looked about her – the empty corridors, the few lights that remained on in the library. The impatient student librarian standing by the desk and tapping her foot. “Where did everyone go?”

“We’re closed,” Scarlet repeated, wondering if pushing this girl out of the library would be considered impolite. “Please go home.”

“But I was” – a big yawn that somehow turned out graceful – “just getting to the good part.” Her head slumped back down on the yellow pages.

Shaking her head, Scarlet fished her keys out of her pocket and turned toward the entrance. _First the cargo ship boy, now this? I am not a babysitter._ “Hurry up, will you?” she called over her shoulder, turning into the next passage. “You’ll miss the late bus.”

But the genteel history girl had dozed off again.


End file.
